Tim Guldimann

MOSCOW, March 27. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian and OSCE diplomats have discussed measures to organize a special monitoring mission to Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry says.

During the meeting, “Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Meshkov and Ambassador Tim Guldimann, personal envoy of the Swiss OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for Ukraine, considered the OSCE role in stopping Ukrainian radicalism and nationalism, contributing to dialogue, normalizing the situation in the country and carrying out a constitutional reform to meet the interests of all regions in Ukraine”, the ministry says.

Earlier, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) agreed to send an observer mission to Ukraine after two weeks of consultations. Russian President Vladimir Putin who met UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Moscow last Thursday, March 20, said the UN chief asked for a possibility to send an OSCE and UN observer missions to Ukraine’s eastern and southeastern provinces.

“I would like you to continue discussing this matter with our partners and find a solution,” Putin told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

“We have almost reached an agreement on the draft document with the OSCE Standing Council. We ensured that alongside the eastern and south-eastern parts of Ukraine, the list of regions to be covered by the OSCE observer missions would also include western and central regions which have seen very unpleasant incidents in recent months,” Lavrov said.

The Russian foreign minister added that the number of observers and regions where they are going to be sent had been fixed.

“Any change in these agreements concerning an increase in the number of observers or regions should be authorized by the OSCE Standing Council. We are going to proceed from you instructions,” Lavrov stressed.